[SirAllen]

There is no such thing as a tile repair kit. So even if they had the "jetpacks" what good would have it done? The only thing that'd come from it is "we're going to die." And each of the 30,000 tiles on the shuttle are uniquely shaped, so unless they stocked all 30,000 of them in the shuttle bay which wouldn't leave them enough room to even get out on that spacewalk, nothing could have even been done beforehand. Not to mention the impossibility of gluing them back on in the void of space with huge temperature variances and no atmosphere.

[Sonar5]

Valid Points Sir Allen.

The External tank is the Cause, and the Tile damage is the effect, IMHO.

Fix the External Tank so it does not lose debris, and we can get back to space.

The Shuttle is a sound design, IMHO.

Regards,
Joe